Berlusconi forms new Italy government

Italy’s prime minister-elect Silvio Berlusconi unveiled one of the country’s most right-wing governments since World War II.

The 71-year-old conservative read out his cabinet list to reporters after meeting with the head of state at the presidential palace.

Mr Berlusconi said he and his ministers would be sworn in at the palace at 5 p.m. tomorrow.

Giulio Tremonti will return as economy minister and Franco Frattini will leave his post as European commissioner to become foreign minister in the 21-member cabinet.

Both held the same jobs in previous Berlusconi governments.

The media mogul held last-minute negotiations with his main allies from the National Alliance (AN), a party with fascist roots, and the vehemently anti-immigrant Northern League to distribute the cabinet posts.

An unexpectedly strong election victory last month gave Berlusconi’s People of Freedom – his own Forza Italia merged with the National Alliance – a strong mandate in parliament.

“This government will once again highlight the overarching power of Mr Berlusconi,” said Franco Pavoncello, politics professor at Rome’s John Cabot University.

The election produced a purge of smaller parties, with only six winning seats versus more than 20 in 2006. One casualty was Berlusconi’s estranged Christian Democrat allies, who gave his last government a centrist counterweight to the right.

Its absence, plus the League’s surprise gains, appeared to have produced one of the most right-wing governments since fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

Nearly all the government ministers are from right-wing parties, such as the National Alliace or the Northern League, or from Berlusconi’s conservative Forza Italia party.

Most past governments in Italy have been made up of coalitions with a more influential centrist component.

While Mr Berlusconi should avoid the degree of infighting that brought down Romano Prodi’s coalition in January, he could be vulnerable to sniping from Northern League leader Umberto Bossi, who felled his first government after seven months.

But Mr Pavoncello said Mr Berlusconi still looked set to stamp his authority on what would be “a government of the premiership”.

“At the end of the day he is still the leader and isn’t going to be pushed around. It’s true the League did well, but Mr Berlusconi did so much better,” the professor told Reuters.

The 66-year-old Mr Bossi, whose violent rhetoric has not been toned down by a stroke, will be minister without portfolio for federalist reforms.

Party colleague Roberto Calderoli, who as a minister in 2006 provoked bloody riots with his T-shirt with a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed, will be in charge of slashing red tape as minister of “Legislative Simplification”.